One thing I’ve learned from endless hours spent watching HGTV is that a coat of paint is the easiest, quickest and cheapest way to refresh a space. Influenced by my favorite designers Candice Olsen and Sarah Richardson (Scott Magillvrary is easy on the eyes, I mean has nice designs, too), I like to create some drama and interest in a room by using patterns. I’ve painted wide horizontal stripes in our dinning room, thin vertical stripes in the powder room and circles in L’s nursery. The first two were nothing a little painter’s tape couldn’t handle. The circle pattern, however, proved to be a bit of a thinker, especially when I had the pregnancy fog.

I thought I would share how I created the graphic circle pattern.

Step 1: I hunted down some tools. A piece of string and two pencils will do the trick but conveniently I had a giant safety compass and chalk on hand. The perks of my job!

Step 2: I measured the length and width of the wall and decided on the radius of the circles. Since I wanted a more graphic look, I needed the circles to be fairly large. I did some division using the length of the wall and went with 22 inches as the diameter (11 inches as the radius).

Step 3: I drew all of the outer circles starting from the upper left corner of the wall. Using the length of the radius, I measured 11 inches from the ceiling down and side in. The intersection point was the center of my first circle. I placed the center of my compass there and drew the circle.

For the second circle, I measured 22 inches down from the center of the first circle and 11 inches in from the wall. I marked that point then drew a circle. I repeated this process all the down to the bottom of the wall. The circles on the very bottom did not go all the way around. I didn’t mind since they were covered by furniture anyway.

I started the second column by measuring 22 inches (length of the diameter) to the right of the center of  first column, marked the center then drew the next circle. Things after this point were pretty systematic. It didn’t take long before all the outer circles were complete.

Step 4: This was the easy part. Using the already marked centers, I drew the inner circles. I made the radius of the inner circles 2 inches shorter creating a band between the circles.

Step 5: I painted the space between the outer and inner circles with a small paint brush. Whenever I “colored outside of the lines”, I used a little wall paint to fix the spot.

There are probably more efficient ways to create this patten, but this approach worked for me. Have you painted any patterns? Or are you thinking of creating a pattern on your wall? Share your projects and ideas with us. We’d happy to help you figure out the math too.